hermes-agent

Free (Open Source)

• MIT licensed agent, one-command install on Linux, macOS, WSL2 or Termux
• Skill accumulation across sessions, persistent memory
• Built-in connectors for Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal and email
• Provider-agnostic: OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face endpoints or a local model
• No feature gates. Every capability is in the open source build
• Nous Portal has a free tier if you want to try their model access without paying

Paid

Nothing for the software. Nous Research sells model access through Nous Portal, and Hermes can use it:

• Plus: $20 per month. Super: $100 per month. Ultra: $200 per month
• All paid tiers cover 300+ models, hosted tool use, higher rate limits and usage-cost discounts
• Each tier includes a monthly credit allowance roughly equal to its price, with unused credit rolling over up to a cap. Nous does not publish the exact allowances outside the portal, so check them at signup rather than trusting a number quoted elsewhere

Self-Hosted Costs

A $5 per month VPS runs it. A dedicated box with more memory helps if you connect several messaging platforms at once. The dominant cost is inference, not hosting: an agent that acts on messages around the clock will spend far more on tokens than on the server. Local models drop that to electricity and hardware.

When to Pay

You never have to. Bring an OpenRouter key and skip the subscription entirely. Nous Portal is worth it when you would rather pay one bill than reconcile four provider accounts, or when the rate limits and usage discounts on Super or Ultra beat what you are paying retail. Do the arithmetic against your current token spend before subscribing, because the credit allowance roughly tracks the price of the plan.